Last week I decided it was time to overcome my provincialism and take seriously the New York Times’ claim that Lai Wah Heen makes the best dim sum in North America.

I wonder what kind of achievement that might mean. When Marco Polo hung out in Hangchow, he said one teahouse prepared l,000 varieties of dim sum. But then Marco was a bit of a Pinocchio. So I don’t expect lots of dim sum, but I do expect, because I’ve seen a picture of it, a rubberducky of a dumpling stuffed with foie gras.  I am overwhelmed with curiosity how the chef Terrance Chan is going to bring this off.

Lai Wah Heen is piss elegant in the pastel art deco style that suggests a dining room on one of the great transatlantic liners That was when the ocean was the world’s swankiest highway and people actually traveled comfortably instead of cowering terrified in past-their-fly-date jetliners. The servers are also nautical, they wear jaunty white monkey jackets as they march purposefully around the room. Menus are given us the moment we’re seated.

No traditional trolleys sully the thick sound-muffling carpet of Lai Wah Heen. But our server is jotting down our order on the multiple choice duplicate bill common to all Chinese restaurants, and he slaps it down on the tablecloth just the way they do on Spadina. An image unbidden rises in my mind’s eye. In Singing in the Rain, the career of Gene Kelly’s hoofer is rolled out in clips. He starts off as a hick doing a routine with blowsy chorus line. Finally he makes it to the Ziegfeld Follies with its towering showgirls. He is now in white tie and tails - but he’s still doing the same routine.

Our server nods with approval of all our choices. We pass up familiar Siu Mai, pork, shrimp, scallop, which any old dim sum place can do and also skip the lotus leaf of sticky rice filled with seafood and meat. We question him about the abalone and shrimp mousse coiled with Taiwanese vermicelli and he immediately replies “Good Choice.” I have a hunch that would be his answer to any question.

Almost before we’ve had time to sip our tea,  a little basket arrives with two enchanting pale green dumplings shaped like phoenix eyes. They slip down easily. They’re filled with fish maw shrimp mousse and sprouts. What’s fish maw? Fish bladder - probably from a conger eel. Who would know? Bladder has taste issues.

Doesn’t matter because a little dish of scarlet sauce filled with diced ingredients is now on the table. It’s sensational, hot and intense. “What’s in it” I cry to a passing server. She hardly breaks stride “ham, shrimp, scallops, XO” When I catch her again as she is marching off in another direction, I cry “What’s XO?”  “Cognac.”

We don’t need the magic sauce for our next exquisitely presented dumplings, they’re deepfried and contain irresistible Malaysian curry with crabmeat and taro.

Now comes the foie gras moment. The black eye of the little ducky dumpling looks upward invitingly. It seems a shame to bite off its head. Disappointment! The foie gras is overcooked! Of course it would be -the dumpling takes longer to cook than liver.

We’d jumped at potstickers stuffed with seared beef tenderloin expecting toothsome chunks of meat. Instead the meat’s grey mince.

A plate arrives with little squares of smoked salmon pancakes. The acidic taste of the salmon integrated in the pancake is too sharp a contrast to the subtle mélanges in the dumplings. It’s like cultures at war.

Two bowls now appear on the table. This is the climax of our tea. A large yellow dumpling containing shark’s fin – one of those trophy foods the Chinese love to flaunt, like bird’s nest soup and to a lesser extent grilled penis.

To get at the dumpling I first have to dispose of a chunk of bok choy and another big chunk of mushroom, which is so tough it must be canned. Its spotted skin is a mnemonic for the tragic death by poisoned mushroom  of Cornelius, the wise elder at the court of King Babar, the Mugabe of the pachyderm nation.

I’ve never eaten shark’s fin before so I broach the dumpling with my spoon expecting to see a small replica of the large black fin that terrorized the beach community in Jaws.

Instead, I find lots of diced vegetables and ham and something that looks like soggy tissue. I stop a server in mid-march and wave him over. “Is this shark’s fin?” I ask.

“Fungus” He takes my spoon and digs around in the dumpling and finally removes an inch-long gold thread. “Shark’s fin” he says triumphantly.  

He adds “Chew slowly.”

Is this cat cool or what?

Finally I understand dramatic irony. The staff have the big picture and know exactly how our tea is going to play out whereas we eaters bumble along in ignorance.

I manage to extract six more golden translucent strands and place them on the crucial tastebuds mid-tongue. It’s amazing. They don’t even taste of tasteless glass noodles.

And for this shark genocide is being committed in the seven seas? I now understand obsession. Despite international criticism, the Chinese pursue shark’s fin regardless of the consequences. It’s their great white whale.

We linger over deep fried mango stuffed buns. I see our server on the other side of the room observing us. He’s right. We don’t like the cottonwool balls.

I’ve enjoyed my tea immensely. The dim sum may have been a tad too genteel but the drama, the personalities, the politics were more entertaining than any food experience I’ve had lately. I’ll sail again.

**Lai Wah Heen, Metropolitan Hotel, 108 Chestnut St 416.977.9899. Wheelchair accessible. Quiet. Cost of dim sum for two plus tax:$70